What Would The Community Think?
by jazztrousers
Summary: AU- Kira takes drugs and generally wallows. Shuhei does his best to help. I hate myself for writing this.


_...All the things that people do in winter, they all melt down into silver..._

Kira gazed lethargically out of his living-room window, watching the rain, expressionless. In his lap sat a CD case- The Cure, oh, how wonderfully fucking fitting- and on top of it lay an intricately folded slip of paper, his driver's licence, and a crisp new bank note

_Rain... rain is like tears. Sad but healing. It cleans the earth. But where does it go? When the rain falls, it loosens all the dirt and dust that coats our city, and mixes with it, so the dirty water flows all around... Rain is water. Water should be pure, and clear, not murky and full of dirt, full of dirty memories of things that once were clean but got defiled and ruined. Like me._

He gazed down at the CD case and slowly began to unwrap the paper, until, unfurling it like a delicate flower, he reached its centrefold and turned his attention to the sharp, white crystals that lay within it. White, but almost translucent. Tiny pieces of something that used to be something else.  
><em>After all,<em> Kira reasoned, _ketamine is a medicine. Medicine for horses. A tranquilliser. But now, like so many other things in life, it's been cracked apart and abused- used with ill-intent, used for something it was never made for. Again, like me._

Even though Kira's previous partner, and boss, who'd taken Kira in just after he left university and was impoverished, had long since dissapeared- suspected of murder, murder he freely admitted to in the comfort of his and (allegedly) Kira's old apartment- the hole he left was something Kira could never really fill, a weeping wound that refused to heal, no matter how much "medicine" he rubbed into it.

The house Kira now lived in with his friend Renji, felt horribly similar to "his"- a name he could still not bring himself to speak, not even inside his own head- even though the apartment had always been "theirs", the ex had insisted.  
>"<em>Oh, do come over to mine and Izuru's, we'll have drinks, won't we?" He would croon to mutual acquaintances.<em>_  
><em>This house was similar in that it was always empty, Renji being busy working security for "some rich ass-hole and his hot sister", and it was always inexplicably freezing fucking cold, now matter how much Kira fiddled with the thermostat. No matter how many hoodies and scarves he'd pile upon himself before eventually giving up and crawling into bed. He had no job now, there was nothing to do _but_sleep.  
>Concerned friends had suggested time and time again that he looked for new work- he'd been unemployed for almost two years after his ex had sold off the calligraphy store where Kira had been working, or <em>kept<em>, before leaving- they thought that it'd distract him, give him some focus on a positive goal.

_Fuck you. I don't want to go back to work. The stress of just living is crushing me, if I have to deal with contact with other humans it might kill me. You're in no position to talk,_he protested silently, thinking of a particular "concerned friend"_, if you want a "positive goal" why don't you try dumping your asshole boyfriend, who once beat you so badly you ended up in the hospital? You know, that guy, the one that's always lying to you and fucking other girls behind your back.__  
><em>  
>Kira shook his head and tipped a small pile of white crystals onto the CD case, before carefully re-assembling the little paper wrap. He'd felt a little bad after hearing those thoughts resonate inside his mind. <em>She does her best. At least she smiles. At least she tries<em>. He then took the bank note, and thoughtfully laid it on top of the snowy shards.

_Snow. Snow is pure and clean like rain, but even easier to mess up. And it melts when blood falls upon it. Or tears. Or even just crunchy footprints. The virgin snow gets trampled on without a thought, and no-one says anything because that's just the way things are. Some things break in a way that means you can't fix them- like people. When people break, they break into a million tiny pieces that cut your hand when you try to pick them up. I know every time Shuhei tries to pick up the pieces of me, he feels the sting._

Shuhei. Another Samaritan, another saintly, worried on-looker to the ongoing trainwreck. But he's different. He doesn't mind getting his hands- or his dick- dirty. More than likely out of a sense of duty to his childhood friend, but by far the most useful out of the bunch of gawping well-wishers Kira called his fucking friends. Shuhei was the only thing apart from drugs that made him feel like a human being, rather than a shadow.

The blonde picked up the card with nimble fingers, the photo of his 18-year-old self smiling up at him. All full of the joys of being young and able to drive._If he could see me now, what would he think, this younger me? He'd probably be disgusted. Or heart-broken. You and me both, young man_. He grasped the card at an angle in his fist, and began forcefully scraping and sliding its edge up and down the length of the note, crushing and cracking the ketamine, willing it to fluff out into powder beneath his impotent hands.

Shuhei loved Kira. Loved him in whatever capacity Kira would permit- Kira wouldn't allow himself to be called by his first name, to kiss without biting and force, would never let Shuhei stay the night, and would flinch at kind words.  
><em>Come on, skinny love, just let me in...<em>  
>"He" used to tell "Izuru" he loved him. "Izuru" was a stupid fuck, but Kira was not. <em>Kira<em> knew what love was, or rather what it was supposed to be, other than a blatant lie. Shuhei didn't love him, not really, he just pitied him in a way that ached in his chest, a sensation with a similar intensity to love. Shuhei wanted to help so badly that he'd give in to Kira's self-destructive whims, indulge him in his broken ways.

The note was lifted from the CD case, now both covered in a powdery mess. He slid and chopped with the card, meticulous in racking up even lines, like white slashes. Satisfied, Kira began rolling the note into a tube between his fingers. Making himself comfortable on the bare sofa, holding his blonde hair out of the way with one hand, cylinder of paper in the other, he then bowed himself in half over the surface in his lap, and taking in a breath like a diver about to plunge into cold water, insufflated each line, one by one, in a single breath.

"Oh." Came the strained complaint as the drugs tore up through the soft inner membranes of Kira's skull with roaring, dizzying speed. He fell back against the sofa, note and CD falling from him as he went completely limp. He felt cold, but malleable, like wet clay. The chemicals he'd snorted made themselves known brashly, the hideously bitter taste dripping down the back of his throat as sniffed. But the vibrating, dissociating sensation that whorled around Kira was consolation enough.

_Everything is so mercifully far away. I feel like I'm lying in an open grave, or at the bottom of a well. My face won't move, but it rarely does these days. There's no-one here for me to talk to, anyway.__  
><em>  
>Kira's middle ear jarred as he registered a jangling noise from somewhere within the house.<em>Renji? Hope it's not. Don't feel like being yelled at right now. So interfering.<em> Kira felt the one of the corners of his mouth tug a little as Shuhei wobbled into view.  
>"Hello, skinny love.. Look at you all bundled up in lots of sweaters. You look like a sad eskimo."<br>Kira said nothing, just looked up at Shuhei balefully, ice blue eyes full of shrugs and sighs. _What can I say?__  
><em>Shuhei forced a smile and looked around, reminding Kira of someone visiting a dying relative and trying to remain positive. He watched Shuhei's dark eyes settle on the note and CD case on the floor."Been hitting the Special K, have we? That's no good, Kira."  
>He speaks this time. Low and thick.<br>"Fuck off... Why're you here?"  
>"I was looking for Renji... Is he not here?"<br>_  
><em>_Shuhei is an appalling liar. He knows Renji isn't here, nor is he looking for him._  
><em>He's looking for me. But I am not here either.<em>

"How'd you get in?"  
>Shuhei ignored the question and sat down gingerly on the hard couch, next to Kira's sprawled form.<br>"You look sick."  
>Kira nodded morosely at this.<br>"I am... it hurts." He said breathily, gazing across the bare floor of the living room.

A long silence followed as Shuhei stood up and silently disrobed, stripping down to his boxers.. He then stepped over the pile of his clothes towards Kira, who watched the other man wordlessly. Shuhei helped Kira out of his clothes a little too slowly and gently for his taste. Like his mother used to undress him before a bath. He was now naked, lying on his back on the couch, Shuhei looming over him.  
>They had a well-established routine- no stretching or prepping, nothing more than spit for lubricant, no soft caresses or tender kisses.<br>_Leave as many marks as possible._

And so, they fucked to the thundering din of the rain, Kira's head pressed to Shuhei's shoulder as he was roughly taken, Shuhei's hands squeezing Kira's throat, just tight enough as not to draw complaints of leniency, but not hard enough to actually cut off Kira's ragged, desperate breaths for good. Once they were done, Shuhei cleaned them both up with tissues and dressed Kira- Renji had previously complained when he came home to find a cum-splattered, naked Kira lying face-down on the couch.

Once dressed and sobering up, Kira lay in the foetal position in the center of the bare living room floor, knees tucked under his chin, semen trickling out of him, staining his inner garments. Shuhei offered a faux-cheery farewell and let himself out, knowing he was no longer welcome. Kira didn't respond or even turn to face the slamming door. He just stared ahead into the distance, and a single tear rolled down one cheek, leaving a cold, burning sensation. He sniffed, his nose still raw from the ketamine.  
><em>I'm sorry to throw you out like this, Shuhei. I hope you understand.<em>__

___


End file.
